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Saturday, April 16, 2011

#aTeacher'sStory - (Part 1) First Day: Briefing!

4th January of 2010. The first day back to school... and first day of work! My school had nothing more than boring and shitty group work. So, since that day on... I would spend the rest of my after-school time with work.

Yes, with work!

What could you expect? Me in shirt, blazer and skirt? Or, me in my bedroom watching DVDs with my hands stuck in snack bowl? No way! I knew I was going to miss my bed and my animal stuffs I've been sleeping with every night, but hey, I needed to go to work!

The picture of me going straight to home, getting online, with my boyfriend resided in the other part of the world was so last year. I was in my second year going to third year, 19 going to 20. Two more years to graduate and I needed to be different from other guys and gals at school. Hardwork starts from now!

More experience in life...in my CV, better reputation... what kind of company doesn't want me when I'm graduated? That's how I think. Hoped it was just coming true in the next two years! I'm crossing my fingers! What's better above all? I'm motivated one!

So, what's my job?

Umm...teaching... you know, facing kids, choosing text books, make examples, give tests and make corrections, get their score, scold them when the students are naughty. And in some occasion, you have to face the parents of your students. When your student is so naughty, you'll have to see the parents some more time. Or, if the parents are really demanding your attention to their (very berry) special kids, they will hunt each time they could see you, discussing what had happened JUST IN A DAY with their kids. Something like that?

That's what you think!

Well anyway, more of teaching stuff will be explained by my future boss and a colleague. The briefing would be short and quick. So, many things to catch up. But at least, the real adventure and challenge had not yet started. Somehow, the fear started today!

I came from first from my exhausting campus life, changing my clothes ( from college student's look to teacher's look) and putting some make up on. I was so tidy, yet so hungry and ....

.....jeezzzz... too much heat in this town! It affected my mood, reaaalllyy!

Sweating a little, I arrived at my office for...I didn't know for how long. Maybe 6 months, then I'd leave for another adventure. Things to focus was... the briefing! If I'm not good for the 3-month-trial I wouldn't even be able to stay in that job for SIX MONTHS.

First person, I met... Angelique! Oh wait, the really first person was... the one I asked whom I should meet first, it was the receptionist. Let's call him, Mr. X. I didn't know his name. I didn't have a chance to ask, too many people, and some of them were making him busy. Then I met Mr. Gerry. That made him the second guy I met. He was the one who interviewed me. He said hi, and refer me to Angelique. So, she was the third person today at work.

"This is Angelique. She's the senior teacher and she would assist in letting you know all things you must know," said Mr. Gerry. Then my sight went to Angelique who was quite friendly. I guessed... You should know, the first day of work is the day where you can still smile all the time. Mr Gerry left us both: me and Angelique. We chatted and later I knew that I was the youngest employee there! Angelique was also still in college, just like me, but she was a year senior than I was. What made me feel so small? I was the only one who wasn't coming from English major or having international work experience. The two other employees worked in Foreign Embassy. =(

So, I thought this was getting so tough. Competitive? Oh yeah sure. I knew it's not the same where you work behind your desk and all, but it feels almost the same.

Yet, good news was always there. In one classroom, the capacity was only for 5 students. 6 students was still acceptable. For 7? No way. They would like to keep the learning process and atmosphere to be private and intimate. So the teacher would have more time to help the students better. Another news that came to me after that from my other boss, Mrs Inez. She asked me whether I could teach kindergarten students? I said, yes. *ahaayy....God, I was crossing my fingers* "Could you also teach 3rd or 4th graders?", she asked again. *Oh, that's better..* I said, yesss!

"The schedule would be Tuesday and Thursday from 2.30 pm and for the kindergarten starts at 4pm, " she said. Yippee! Nice... I thought I could make it if my school didn't change the whole schedule like crazy.

Just 30 minutes chat, Angelique's student came. From 2 students, only half came up. Total: 1 student. I was quite confuse where to go and where I should leave my belongings. I saw Angelique put her bag on her chair, then I asked her where I could put mine. "Just put it here, it's ok," she said. So, okay, I left my things in the office and headed to the classroom. She told a little about the usage and kinds of classroom were there.

Thank God, the one who came up was a little girl from an Islamic school. So cute and smart. When I saw how Angelique taught her, it seemed to be an easy job to do for teaching such smart and fast-learning girl.

I was in the class where it was a glass room type. I could see people coming and going, back-and-forth, in front of the class room. There, I saw a boy, a fat one, walking so fishy. I smiled at him, he didn't reply. Pathetic me. I paid attention to him through the window glass while Angelique was teaching Annisa. He put his head back down, running up-and-downstairs, and dancing like crazy. For the first time, people might think that he got autism. To me, he looked like not.

I wondered how to teach such students with syndrome and disorders. It would be interesting. Somehow, I was hoping, I was not the one who got the call. Please... let him got another teacher! This was the day where I had to mark the calendar for another stuff: a day where my brain and heart didn't work in the same way. My hearts said, if he's in my future class, I can handle him! Too much for inexperienced teacher, huh?

The briefing finished at 4.30. It's cool. For the first day! I took my bag and off to back home. I took a public transport as it was very close from work to my house, only 20 mins (in Jakarta, it considers very fast and near). I zipped off my bag to get my wallet. It's gone!!! OMG, my black cat wallet from my sister was gone! I searched everywhere and I couldn't find it. Fortunately, I kept some little amount money at the side pouch of my bag. That was the only money in my bag to pay the fare. *ugh*

No reaction I made during my way home. I was thinking that maybe I left it at home. But I remembered exactlythat I took out my wallet to pay the fare on the way go. Maybe somebody stole it that time. But, I tried a call to my office. And, what a smart girl I was, I didn't have my office number. So I got to google it and call. Nothing changes. My boss said there's nothing on the desk I was sitting around.

Positive. It was gone. I didn't know where and how it was gone. Then, 5.30! I got a call from Angelique. I didn't think that she got my wallet, but something got in my mind if there was also something wrong with her, or the office. I took the phone from my mom and answered Angelique. For my surprise, her wallet was also gone! We put our belongings in the same place... How could this happen in the first day of working?

I didn't have any problem if the wallet was gone and it's something that I bought myself. It was a gift. That's what made me feel soooo guilty. The money inside the wallet wasn't much for anyone, for me, yes, a little....and it wasn't the money that I earned myself. I was so shocked and wondered how could I be so careless in the new place I'd just got into?

Firstly I had a debate on my mom, that I might have lost my concentration from the morning and all. The college was soo damn busy, something that I blamed on. My mom said me, "Why should you go to work? I didn't ask you to." After a long long ..looonngg debate, she finally understood me and calmed me down saying it would be okay. We're superstitious family, so she told me that the lost of my wallet was to release the bad karma and to open the path of luck to come. Especially it was my first day working, so we hoped that my work would be blessed.

The office really felt sorry about this and would 'reimburse' the money I had lost in the incident. Somehow, the memory and the value of the wallet couldn't be 'reimbursed'. But it wasn't the office's fault anyway, so I decided to let it go no matter what. It would be a hard to job, try to release a pain and loss in the first day you know your new place. The first months was going to be really tough for me.

Besides, I still had to finish the other shits When I knew I lost the wallet, my mom and I hurried to off the account, so the guy who took it wouldn't be able to access it. What was the other surprises? "Did you try to access your card this afternoon, ma'am?" said the officer. I said no! How could I have time to? He said, "There was someone, then, tried to access the card for three times. All failed."

Knowing that it was fail, I felt so relieved. The money was saved. That would link to another shits, which was going to the police station and made a property loss statement, so I could close my account and open a new one, as well as for making new ID.

And the next day, my students and I were going to meet... My night will be full of question marks and mystery symbols of what's going to happen. Hmm....So, tomorrow, first time to meet the students and first time (and the last time, I hope) to visit the Police Station.

Increase your students vocabulary progress with playing Hang-man on the board. It'd better if you have interactive tools like computer, you can download this simple and funny Hang-man game. Download the game on Free Download Center. But if you don't have computer for each students, maybe you can still download it for yourself and play! Know it better before you share it to your students =)

Give your students a free time or treats....This will work with giving your students a coloring pages. When you're going to give them score of their coloring, remember, don't criticize them like, "Leaf is green, you can't color it blue!". Don't! I beg you, don't do that! Like Picasso said, "Every child is an artist," and art doesn't know wrong. Let their imagination and creativity flows, it would help to generate the wide thinking space. I always give the children A score for their drawing, no matter it looks good to me or not. I only consider their effort in drawing, whether they're really trying to color it good or just do it until it's finish and doesn't care what it would look like. I often see some mistakes in coloring like unmatched color, or color the wrong space, they want it! I let them with every inch of creativity they pour down in their coloring.

For free drawing pages access, you can search on google images. Print some and make copies. Simple, isn't it?